Reflection
There was a time that giving your word was enough. In Eastern thinking, your word was your very self. Thus, there was no need to sign on the dotted line or put up a collateral. The promise you make is enough; the word you give can be trusted. But we know that is not the case today. Nevertheless, there are still those willing to trust other people’s word as well as give their word of promise. When people get married, they make the promise to be faithful and true. When sworn into office, elected officials give their word to uphold their duty to the people. When ordained to the priesthood or enter religious life, they give their vows of commitment to serve God’s people. It is important to make this kind of public declaration of commitment. Do all of them make good on the word they have promised? You know the answer better than I do.
Sometimes, there are those who do not make any public declaration or formal announcement to the whole world and yet are better at keeping their word. They are ‘volunteers’ willing to do the best they can. Are they better than those who did make the public commitment yet failed to keep their word? We tend to think they are. But that, I think, is not the lesson Jesus imparts to us in our Gospel today. He tells the parable about a father who had two sons. He asked the first son to work in the vineyard and he said, “I will not” but changed his mind and went. He asked the second son the same thing and he said “Yes, sir” but did not go. Jesus asked his listeners, the religious leaders, “which of two did his father’s will?” They all said the first. The son who said “Yes” but did not go represents Pharisees and scribes who gave their word to serve God and his people but rejected Jesus. The son who said “no” but changed his mind represent the latecomers we heard about last Sunday. They were the public sinners who said “no” initially, but when they encountered Jesus, they changed not only their minds but also their hearts and repented. Even the most obstinate hearts, represented by the tax collectors and prostitutes, can change their minds or be changed by God’s grace.
Jesus’ words today are both an admonition and an assurance. He admonishes us not only to profess out faith in word but to live it in deed; not only to pledge our commitment of love and service in a marriage ceremony or religious profession or oath-taking but not even try to make it work. It is an assurance as well because it shows us that, with God’s grace, we can change our minds and hearts and be free from past sins and failures. We can turn our greed into generosity, our rebelliousness to repentance, our “No” into “Yes” to God’s grace.
Response
Our “Yes” to God is often reluctant. We know the right thing to do yet our human inclinations and personal interest draws us away from our “yes” to God. Just the same, let us renew our “yes” to the commitments we have made each day.
